Trying Something New: Part Dos

Sundays are dedicated to my fitness {NGP} hurdles and accomplishments.  Wednesdays will be for our general family updates and doings.

And right now.  JD has the flu.  I have to admit when he first started feeling sick last Thursday, I was expecting the usual man cold (Man Cold - YouTube).  And I, as usual, would have to cater to his every need, and baby him more than I would do for CJ (Wait a second.  Did you just say that you would cater to my every need like you USUALLY do????  I will definitely remember this).

Saturday morning came and JD felt like he needed to go the doctor, CJ also has gymnastics on Saturday mornings.  But I decided that I would drive JD to the doctor since he was feeling especially ill.  I dropped him off at the doctor's office and headed to Target with CJ (partially to keep her out of a doctor's office full of sick people and partially to let her run around)(But wait, I'm sure the catering part is coming up soon....).  The next text I get from him is this:

Not ideal, but that's one way to move to the front of the line

Um, yeah, so I guess I can't make too much fun of JD and his 'man cold', which has officially been diagnosed by and official doctor as the FLU.

Other than the flu pestering our family this week, there has been much more going on since my last post.

Thanksgiving has come and gone, so has Christmas and the new year too.  And with all those, CJ turned 3, my family came to visit, Sophie is still loving karate and CJ started gymnastics.   Below are a few photos (picture overload!) to round out the end of 2015 and the beginning of 2016.  Oh, and JD and I got to go to Hawaii with some friends!  I'll do a special post on that later (and knowing me, later means a year after it actually happened).

Hawaii in October 

trying to get family photos....

Soph and CJ singing Jingle Bells by the fire

Happy Birthday CJ!

I'm pretty sure CJ photobombed this one...

Ice Skating at Atlantic Station

Making Christmas cookies with Maemae

First broken board!

Virginia Beach wedding

Me, JD and his siblings

Prepping for her first Father/Daughter Dance

Happy {LATE} New Year!

P.S. For those you just joining in, JD likes to proof my posts and make his 'corrections/additions' in red.

Here Comes Rudolph {Late Christmas Edition}

So several months ago (all the way back to November), I had the bright idea to make us ladies in the family some Christmas shirts.  Ok, so not entirely my own idea,  I may have gotten the idea at a craft show in Oklahoma while standing at a booth that had red baseball type tees with a sparkly reindeer on them….

Proudly wearing our Rudolph shirts!

Ok, so back to MY idea.  My mom and I shopped around for a bit looking for the perfect red sleeved, baseball t-shirt.  I think we finally purchased the winners from Academy and Old Navy. 

Hobby Lobby was our next stop to find the bling-bling sparkly iron on transfer sheets.     The design I saw had the reindeer in both silver and gold.  I chose to do silver for the girls (CJ & Sophie) and gold for myself.   My mom was making her and Addy’s shirts.   

I found a reindeer silhouette printable online and printed it out.  I used that cut out to trace around onto the iron on transfer.  After everything was cut out, it was time to iron on the pattern to the shirts.  

I used my printer to enlarge the image

I had to be extra careful not to 'remove' any of Rudolph's antlers 

I have used a similar sparkly iron on transfer previously for CJ’s 1^st birthday party (see it here), but for some reason the snowflake design didn’t adhere well to the shirt and is peeling at the ends.  I was hopeful this one would be better. 

Everything ironed on like a charm.  And since this wasn’t just a plain ‘ole reindeer, I had to add a bright red nose to make Rudolph.  I had some scrap red fabric and cut out the tiniest of tiny little red noses and used fabric glue to make it stick. 

Missing the Red Rudolph Nose

I love how the shirts turned out!

They have been through several washes and so far so good.

Kid approved!

Christmas in Cataloochee

Yes, this is a post about our Christmas vacation.  And yes, I know it's February.  And yes, I'm writing this anyways.  Deal.

Once a long time ago, my family had a short lived tradition of taking Christmas vacations instead of doing the whole gift exchange thing.  It has been several years since our last trip but we wanted to start the tradition again this past Christmas.

In the past my family would go to New Mexico to a ski resort area.  We have been to Taos, Sipapu, Angel Fire and Red River.   Those are some of my favorite Christmas memories.  We even ventured to Gatlinburg, TN one year.  While my family isn't a huge snow ski kind of family, we do love the snow.  Snowmobiling, snow tubing, ice skating, etc.  We love it all.

It may be because we spent a few years in Alaska when I was younger.  For those of you that aren't familiar with my families history, I'll fill you in.  I grew up in SE Oklahoma, the youngest child (only daughter) to educator parents.  My father was my principle (my school was teeny, as in super tiny, my town didn't have a stoplight small) and my mother was my both my PE (physical education - yes, I am older....) and my driver's education teacher.  Needless to say, everyone knew us and we knew everyone.  Anyways, trying to make a long story shorter, when I was in third grade, my parents decided they needed a change of scenery from Oklahoma.  And a change, big change, happened.  We moved to Alaska.  And that may have just started my families love affair with the white powdery stuff.

Kuskokwim 300 - Akiak, Alaska

No clue & no clue, just found it in our old pics!

Back to present day (well maybe technically it was last year), we rented a awesome cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.

what an awesome cabin!

great porch for viewing the fog

My family drove in from Oklahoma, picked my cousin Angie up on the way and met us in Atlanta for the short (JD will probably disagree onto 'short' term) trip to Cataloochee.  We drove through the north Georgia mountains and ended up near the towns of Waynesville, only 30 minutes from Asheville, NC.

While we were hoping for snow all we were treated with was a ton of fog.

called the Smoky Mountains for a reason

Maemae and Me

We took the girls sledding one day.

See the super small pink dots at the top? That's the girls 

Addy first one down! {far left} 

Sophie's turn! 

and back up the hill again, thank goodness for a moving sidewalk

CJ even got to do some sledding, thanks to Maemae

love those pink cheeks!

took about a dozen photos and this was the only one with all 3 girls looking 

Mommy & CJ

two cuties

Angie, JD and I road tripped to Asheville another day.

And we spent a ton of time together playing games.

sisters and cousins 

looks like homework

Addy & Uppa

I absolutely love our family trips and hope we can continue to do them every year.

Does your family have a family trip tradition for Christmas?  Tell me about it!

***If you are missing the red 'corrections' this week, it is because I am out of town and JD isn't available to proof my post***